The Law-Breakers

“See here, Huntly,” he said at last, in that tone of quiet authority that never deserted him for long. “I can rely on that? There’s nothing to stop her by the way—now? Nothing at all?”

But the agent shook his head, and his eyes still shone with their ironical light.

“I’d say the prophet business petered out miserably nigh two thousand years ago. I wouldn’t say this doggone prairie ’ud be the best place to start resurrectin’ it. No, sir! There are too many chances for that—seein’ we’re on a branch line. There’s the track—it might give way. You never can tell on a branch line. The locomotive might drop dead of senile decay. Maybe the train crew’s got drunk and is raisin’ hell at some wayside city. You never can tell on a branch line. Then there’s that cargo of liquor you’re yearnin’ to——”

“Cut it out, man,” broke in the officer sharply. “You are sure about the train? You know what you’re talking about?”

The agent grinned harder than ever.

“This is a prohibition territory——” he began.

But again Fyles cut him short. The man’s irrepressible love of fooling, half good-humored, half malicious, had gone far enough.

“Anyway you don’t usually get drunk before sundown, so I guess I’ll have to take your word for it.”

Then Inspector Fyles smiled back into the other’s face, which had abruptly taken on a look of resentment at the charge.

“I tell you what it is,” he went on. “You boys get mighty close to the wind swilling prohibited liquor. It’s against the spirit of the law—anyway.”

But the agent’s good humor warmed again under the officer’s admission of his difficulties. He was an irrepressible fellow when opportunity offered. Usually, he lived in a condition of utter boredom. There were only two things that made life tolerable for him in Amberley. These were the doings of the Mounted Police, and the doings of those who made their existence a necessity in the country.